


Rest and Recovery

by meikahidenori



Category: Jet Set Radio Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 15:53:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7321369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meikahidenori/pseuds/meikahidenori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>another old fiction I feel i should post here : http://meikahidenori.deviantart.com/art/Rest-and-recovery-245774198 - is a link to the original devinat art posting</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest and Recovery

I can't believe I followed him, Jazz mumbled to herself. But then, where else could I go?

She had followed the tall skater to a large skate park behind a junkyard, where the rumoured "GG's" hung out. She'd had only ever heard of and seen tags from this gang, and if the red head was lying about them, she was going to let him have it.

Although, it was a bit hard to not listen to him when he mentioned he was one of them. When you get thrown together with someone and forced to work together unexpectedly to take down a deadly mechanical menace, you had to give the guy some sort of credit for making sure your arse didn't get filled with 100 pounds of solid lead. He didn't talk much, to say the least, so it wasn't as if she had to listen to any sort of bragging about being in a gang that's only rumoured to exist, which would have made him a lot less credible.

There were a few other skaters there, each decked out in some of the weirdest outfits she'd ever seen, although, since she moved to japan, this was something she was slowly getting used to. There were a few girls and a few guys, just hanging around.

"Welcome to my home." The red head said out of the blue and took Jazz by surprise. It was the first words he had spoken since the mechanical monster incident. He skated ahead of her and passed a few of the skaters and stopped in front of a guy with a strange oversized beanie.

"Well, hello stranger."

Jazz turned to where the voice came from. A girl decked in a really tight green dress with blonde hair smiled. "My names, Gum. Let me be the first to welcome you to the GG's. I assume since you came with Beat that you've been recruited."

"Recruited?" Jazz looked stunned.

"Recruited, followed on your own free will, it doesn't matter; you're here now which means you'll mostly likely want to join us." Gum shrugged.

"I don't even know you, so how can you ask me to join?" Jazz questioned.

The girl smiled. "Beat brought you here, which makes you ok in my book. If you couldn't be trusted at all he wouldn't have brought you here in the first place."

"I see." Jazz gave in and held out her hand. "My names Jazz. I'm new here, well new to Japan anyway."

"Glad to meet you Jazz, I'll show you around shall I?"

The conversation was cut short by some serious shouting and swearing of a female persuasion in the middle of the park. Both girls looked in the direction it was coming from. They spotted a girl with blue hair yelling at Beat and the other skater who were standing with her.

"What do you mean my Lill' Yo-yokins has turned on us? YOU'RE LYING!"

There seemed to be a heated discussion with more shouting on the girl's part.

"Not so good news I presume?" Jazz faltered.

"Not by the sound of it, no not really." Gum looked serious. "Her boyfriend has gone missing."

"Boyfriend?" Jazz thought a moment. "Is he a small guy in a green-blue hoodie?"

Gum looked surprised. "Yeah he is, how'd you know?"

"An inspired guess." Jazz looked despondent. "He and some robotic skaters trapped me in the Rokkaku dome, mistaking me as a GG. They trapped some other skaters and your pal as well. That's kind of how we met."

Gum smiled softly. "Beat always meets people in some of the strangest places and situations." She shook her head. "Typical."

"What's his relation to him?" Jazz asked. She remembers how shocked and disbelieved Beat had been when the other skater had appeared and threatened them. She knew there was something going on and that they knew each other, but now there were more questions coming to the surface and she needed some answers.

"None what so ever… Although they are very close, kind of like brothers. You rarely see one without the other. That's kind of why he's taking this so seriously." Gum looked as if she had been robbed in memory lane. "Most of us have family to go home to at night, and Beat, well… for as long as I have known him, he's always lived over there in the junkyard. No real family so to speak of, so when anything happens to any of us GG's, he takes it very personally. I can't remember how he met yo-yo, but as far as I can tell, since they became friends they both have kept each other company in that yard. I know Yo-yo ran away from his home in Osaka to see if he could make it big in the city, only to end up here with us. To be honest, I have known Beat a very, very long time, and I still know practically nothing about him, other than we're he's family by adoption, and that where ever he goes, you either find those who respect him, or are massive rivals of his." She smiled warmly. "He's always welcomed us with open arms, and we've all stayed in the shed a few times when we've wanted to escape our parents."

Jazz felt very heavy hearted listening to Gum talk about her fellow skater. She kind of wished she had given the guy more credit than she had although very hard when the guy doesn't go out of his way to be likable though.

The girl with blue hair stormed towards them with the other guy following behind. She shoved passed them and looked like her feathers where not going to settle any time soon.

"Calm down Ryth! There's not much we can do now till morning." The guy tried to calm her down.

The girl addressed as Ryth spun around and growled "That's easy for you to say! He's not YOUR BOYFRIEND CORN!"

Corn pulled a long face and muttered "and thank goodness for that… I'd hate to put up with either of you in a relationship."

Ryth stormed out of the park. Corn scratched his head and shrugged. Even the calmest member of the gang wasn't able to put the fire of the dragon out. "Sometimes I really don't get that girl, but blaming us for this mess isn't helping. I went looking with Pots to see if he could sniff anything out and we came up with Nadda. Combo came back equally empty handed. So far the only lead we've got is from Beat and even though I'm just as shocked to hear it, I'd believe him any day. He hasn't got any reason to lie about anything like that. No one likes to hear that about someone they care about, but you can't deny what you see. I don't think Beat believes it either and he knows yo-yo better than any of us and if he thinks something sinister is going on, then I do too." Corn sighed, then realised he was standing in front of a new face. "I don't believe we've had a chance to meet. I'm Corn, I'm kind of like the peacemaker in the gang, although, we don't seem to be having much of that right now." He glanced back in the direction he came from. "I'm guessing you've met Beat and been acquainted with Gum already. Feel free to come and go as you please, we're very laid back around here..." He smiled.

"Jazz." Jazz shook his outstretched palm. "I'm thinking that it might be interesting to stick around a while."

"Ha!" Corn snorted happily. "Then I can assure you that you won't be disappointed."

"Actually, I was wondering if it was worth trying to you know, talk to Beat a moment?" Jazz hesitated. She knew that the only way she was going to find out why she was here in the first place would be direct from the source.

"Go ahead; he'll be in the junkyard." Corn yawned. "It's getting late. We'll all meet back here in the morning and work out what we're going to do about this whole Yo-yo thing then. I can't think straight on a lack of sleep."

There was a loud growl.

"And on an empty stomach too." Gum laughed.

*****

Jazz had covered most of the ground in the junkyard and there was no sign of the redhead. She was beginning to think that she'd never find him. Drops of rain where now falling from the dark night clouds which were now blocking out most of the light from the rest of the city. She ducked into the shelter of the nearest car, an old beat up panel van, that had been defaced so many times with spray-paint that you couldn't be certain what its original colour would have been. Rain pelted the metal roof and the sound reverberated through the scrap metal.

What a waste of time. I'll never… her hand brushed against something in the dark. That better not have been a rat…..

She pulled her hand towards her sharply, and in the darkness could see a glint of shiny liquid on her fingertips. Her eyes began to adjust, and at first she thought it was just water getting into the temporary shelter, but water doesn't feel warm, does it?

Her eyes widened as her senses began jumping to conclusions. She scanned the dark, and could make out piles of rags, cardboard, bags of rubbish... hold on…

A shiver went down her spine. She didn't hear it over the sound of the rain, but there was defiantly something, or someone in the van with her. She glanced at the large pile of rags to her side. Whatever was under there was alive. Jazz grabbed the pile and yanked hard. The scrap of whatever it had once been slipped off the sleeping figure and jazz gasped, really surprised to see that it was someone else in there with her. She held back a yelp and tried to calm herself down. Whoever it was hadn't moved. She let out a deep breath and leaned over to get a better look.

She could just make out some features of the stranger, mostly where their clothes started and ended. There were lights and dark shadows in the material and it was very dirty, and there were some really dark patches here and there. She touched one of them and it felt warm.

Blood.

The person had been bleeding. And pretty heavily too… it looked suspiciously fresh, or at least, within the last 12 hours. She reached over towards where the head was laying on some cardboard and gently rolled it so she could make out the stranger's face.

It was Beat. She had found him, but not in the state that she hoped for. In the poor light of the storm she could make out that his features where very ashen and clearly exhausted. Nothing like several hours ago when she was following him, he was so dead serious and stone faced if you bumped into him in the street you run a mile in the opposite direction in case he beat seven kinds of crap out of you. It was as if the burden on his shoulders hadn't lifted, but had soaked deep into his skin. Dark circles where under his eyelids, signs he really hadn't been sleeping due to stress and was only asleep now because he couldn't keep it up for another night. So different in the dark than in the light of day, it was more evident that he'd been living a very tough lifestyle that he learned to fit into rather than forcing it to suit him… and it worked, as he clearly survived this way every day.

That may have been why she hadn't noticed any sort of injuries before either. He was so used to doing it tough, that he was able to ignore and hide any pain under a mask that made you think everything was fine. The pain was very clear now, it was written all over his features.

She gently tugged his shirt up where the wound was. There where bullet holes embedded in his side. They must have hit when that crazed policeman left out from the mechanical abomination and starter firing at random while laughing maniacally. She recalled being pushed aside into one of the side barriers of the stadium and hitting her head hard against the concrete knocking her out for a short while. When she had come to, she wasn't in the stadium anymore, but on the street rooftops with Beat sitting beside her, waiting for her to come around. He was holding his side then too, but she didn't think anything of it at the time, the way he spoke was as if it was just a few bruised ribs and the like, nothing as serious as this.

She grabbed one of the smaller rags that was lying in the van and held it outside in the pouring rain till it was drenched enough, then applying it to the wounds. If she could stop the bleeding, it would help her see how far the shrapnel had dug into his flesh. She expected him to at least stir in his sleep, but there wasn't form of movement. He really was completely gone for the time being. Worried, she checked his pulse, hoping he wasn't actually slipping from life as we know it. It was there, beating very hard in his chest, reassuring her he was very much alive. She ran her free hand though his mattered red hair and down the side of his face. She knew why that girl Gum spoke kindly of him before now. She understood perfectly.

Rain continued to bucket down. There was no way Jazz was going out in that anytime soon, so she gave in to make do with spending the night in the van with Beat, which wasn't too bad an idea, this way she could make sure he was ok, a small thanks for him more or less saving her life by getting her out of there when things turned from bad to worse back in the stadium.

The blood had stopped, but there wasn't much Jazz could do about the bullets. She couldn't see them in the dark, there was just no way possible to do so. She tore up some crude bandages and dressed the injury as best as she could. It would have to do till day light, as long as it holds, he should be fine, she thought.

She rested her head down near his, hoping that he wouldn't mind waking up next to someone in the morning. The sounds of rain hitting metal were the last thing she heard before drifting off to sleep.

Sunlight shined through the fogged windows of the van. Jazz shivered as she awoke. She shifted, and then stopped. She was very warm, warmer than when she fell asleep. She could hear the sound of deep breathing and a soft pumping of a heart sending blood around a body, which she had somehow been held tightly against. It was a sort of instant shock for her to realise what was happening. She was lying in his arms, cuddled right in as if to share as much body warmth as possible. She stiffened in fear that he might wake up and get the same sort of shock too.

"You were cold."

She slowly looked up into a set of very dark, tired green eyes.

"Didn't want you to freeze." Beat's voice was horse and dry, which sounded extremely coarse when speaking as soft as he was.

"I guess you must get used to it."

Beat coughed, and Jazz could feel the tightness of his chest as he did so.

"You never get used to it. Sometimes… you can't feel your arms and your legs let alone your fingers and toes."

Jazz got the sense that he was smiling when he said that. His heart beat had skipped a little.

"Thank you."

"For what?" Jazz asked. Then she remembered. "Oh."

Beat made a sound that was close enough to be considered a chuckle.

Jazz scowled. "Don't get any funny ideas. This was a one night thing, it won't happen again."

"Wasn't thinking anything of the sort." The answer was whispered and honest. "Except for how to go about why our buddy is now against us… and maybe some breakfast."

Jazz considered the second option. "Food would be nice. I could make some toast if I get back to my apartment." She hesitated.

"It's alright. I'll find something. I always do." The voice wavered. "It's all a matter of being able to get up and move around to get some that would be a great help." Beat attempted to move. Jazz had sat up and noticed him struggle to raise himself onto his elbows. He wasn't in any sort of shape to be doing anything. The beating he took yesterday, the days of no sleep, the cold and a really bad nutrition-lacking diet was really affecting him. The bullets in his side where no help either, but he was going to fight it, no matter what. He didn't care remotely at all about himself; he was worried about his fellow gang member which was all he could think about.

Jazz leaned over and gently shoved him back down again. "You're in no condition to go anywhere. I don't even care if that silly girl whatever-her-name-is carries on that you're not helping. You need to rest and get your strength back up before you are able to do a thing. I'm sure the others will understand."

Beat blinked blearily a few times. None had ever spoken to him like that before; heck no one had ever cared about him until this point. He made sure that they never did. It was something he prided himself in, he didn't like the idea of anyone worrying about him at all when there were other things that were more important to stress over. It's not that he didn't want them to care at all, not by a long shot; he just felt that he was capable of looking after himself, which he was doing pretty well until these last few days.

Maybe just this one time, he really needed some Rest and recovery.

"I'll come back with some food, explain things to your gang and come back to make sure you are ok." Jazz got up to crawl out of the van when she felt a tug on her arm.

"Please, stay a little bit before you go." The last few words where uttered at an inaudible mumble. His hand let go of her arm as he slowly slipped back into a restless sleep. Jazz watched him for a minute or two before lying back down beside him.


End file.
